Virus outbreak reported at Blair nursing home north of Omaha

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An outbreak of the coronavirus has occurred at a nursing home in the Omaha bedroom community of Blair, with more than two dozen residents and staff infected, health officials said.

The Three Rivers Public Health Department reported in a Friday news release the outbreak at Crowell Memorial Home in Blair, which is about 20 miles northwest of Omaha. The facility is licensed for 108 assisted living and skilled nursing beds.

Reached Tuesday, the health department said 24 residents and eight staff members had recently tested positive for the virus at the home — which provides senior apartments, assisted living, skilled nursing care and rehabilitation services.

A phone message left Tuesday for the home’s assistant administrator was not immediately returned.

Another Blair facility was the site of one of the first nursing home outbreaks in Nebraska. Carter Place in Blair temporarily closed after 19 residents and staff tested positive in late March and early April.

The state’s online virus tracker shows 41,388 in Nebraska have tested positive for the virus and 452 people have died since the outbreak began. Those numbers include nearly 1,500 positive test results reported since Friday.

The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Nebraska has risen over the past two weeks, to nearly 393 new cases per day in the last week from nearly 263 the week prior, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 tracking project.

The state’s numbers also show Nebraska’s hospitals have 36% of their regular beds, 31% of their intensive care unit beds and 81% of their ventilators available — figures that have changed little in the last few months.